Cutter known for 'Perfect Storm' rescue to be sunk

PORTSMOUTH — The fate of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Tamaroa, once homeported in New Castle and immortalized in the book “The Perfect Storm,” is at the bottom of the ocean.

Joey Cresta

PORTSMOUTH — The fate of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Tamaroa, once homeported in New Castle and immortalized in the book “The Perfect Storm,” is at the bottom of the ocean.

“It's a sad state of affairs,” said Tom Robinson, executive director of the Zuni Maritime Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Richmond, Va., whose mission is to preserve the ship in an operational condition.

Long before it became famous for a daring rescue during the “No Name Storm of Halloween” in 1991, the Tamaroa was known as the USS Zuni, a U.S. Navy salvage tug. In 1943, “The Mighty Z” was sent to the South Pacific, where it won four battle stars and saved several torpedoed ships and hundreds of crew members, Robinson said.

Today, it is the only surviving warship that fought at the Battle of Iwo Jima, Robinson said. It was decommissioned from the Navy in 1946, but was active for 46 more years, due to being recommissioned the Tamaroa.

The Tamaroa had many duties, including search-and-rescue and law enforcement patrols. On July 23, 1985, the vessel changed home ports to New Castle.

The most famous event in Tamaroa's history served as the basis of Sebastian Junger's best-seller “The Perfect Storm.” In 2000, the book was adapted into a film starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg that drew more than $300 million at the box office.

During that storm, when seas built to 40 feet in 80-knot winds, the Tamaroa rescued three people from the sailboat Satori 75 miles off Nantucket before setting out in the violent seas again to rescue the crew of a downed New York Air National Guard HH-60 helicopter that had run out of fuel on a similar rescue mission.

The Coast Guard decommissioned the Tamaroa in 1994. It ultimately landed in the hands of the Zuni Maritime Foundation thanks to an unnamed benefactor who supported the foundation's plan to transform it into a working, living memorial, educational facility and maritime museum.

Robinson said the foundation spent 10 years working to get the ship restored to its World War II glory. It was repainted to its original Navy gray, its bridge was completely redone and, mechanically, the ship was good to go, he said.

“It was a labor of love for a lot of people,” he said.

However, the vessel had remained in the water for at least 20 years and its steel hull was beginning to show signs of failure. In May 2012, while moored outside the Norfolk-based salvage operation American Marine Group, “she sprung a leak about the size of your thumb less than a thousand feet from the dry dock we wanted to put her in,” Robinson said.

Tim Mullane, co-owner of American Marine Group, said the engine room was flooded and the propulsion room was beginning to flood. He said there was a series of holes the size of a pinkie finger.

“It's probably a good thing it never got into dry dock, because the ship probably never would have come out of dry dock,” he said.

While the foundation hoped to raise $500,000 to put the ship in dry dock for repairs, Mullane said the true cost could have been as high as $2 million. The foundation also could never get ahead on fund raising because of towing bills from moving the ship from place to place, he said.

“The project grew beyond their fund-raising abilities,” Mullane said.

According to Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Scott McBride, the Coast Guard captain of the Port of Virginia issued an order stating the vessel should remain at American Marine Group because it would not be safe for it to travel across the river due to the hull fractures.

“In this case, the captain of the port was concerned about the structural integrity of the vessel's hull,” McBride said.

Shirley Jaeger, administrative assistant of the Zuni Maritime Foundation and wife of Director of Operations Harry Jaeger, said the foundation's benefactor backed out when the true costs became apparent, and final attempts at fund-raising proved unsuccessful.

Jaeger said the foundation had sought out a port willing to take the vessel, from Newport News to Old Town Alexandria.

“We could see the port we wanted to be in” across the river in Portsmouth, Va., she said.

“It broke our hearts,” Robinson said. “It's been a damnable situation. It hurt us desperately and all the people who worked so hard on it.”

The foundation is removing items of historical value from the vessel and is donating them to museums and other ships, he said.

The Tamaroa remains moored in a cove near some other vessels. Mullane said American Marine Group expects to take over ownership of the vessel, with plans to convert it into an artificial reef.

If the plans come to fruition, the Tamaroa will be sunk, most likely off the coast of New Jersey or Delaware, to become a habitat for oysters, mussels and other invertebrates, Mullane said.

“I've sunk 60 vessels for artificial reefs,” he said, noting the reefs are made suitable for exploration by divers. “When you make them into a reef, it becomes a living memorial, where they know where the ship is and they know what's happened to it.”

The alternative, he said, would be turning it into scrap metal, erasing any tangible remnant of the Tamaroa from the Earth.

“The part that I find sad (is) the amount of time and energy and how much pride the volunteers had in this ship, and how hard they worked to preserve it,” he said.

“Unless we had a miracle, there's no way in the world we could do anything,” Robinson said.

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